This invention relates to communication between electronic wager gaming machines and other devices in gaming establishments, such as host devices, servers, kiosks, networked table games, etc.
A gaming machine may operate as a “stand alone” unit or linked in a network of some type to a group of gaming machines. As technology in the gaming industry progresses, more and more gaming services are being provided to gaming machines via communication networks that link groups of gaming machines to one or more network devices (e.g., servers) that provide gaming services and/or game themes. As an example, gaming services that may be provided by one or more servers to networked gaming machines include player tracking, accounting, cashless award ticketing, lottery, tournaments, progressive games and bonus games. Recently, the present assignee has developed methods and devices for downloading game themes, peripheral code and other software to gaming machines.
Although the currently-used methods and devices for communicating with, obtaining data from and controlling devices in a gaming network are adequate, it would be desirable to provide methods and devices that improve upon the prior art.